Councilman Tim Waters cited a number of recent occasions in which he and one or more other council members met with constituents or groups interested in sharing their viewpoints on community issues.

"We get invited to these all the time. It's our job to show up and listen and learn," Waters said

However, Councilwoman Bonnie Finley — who represents Ward 3, a northwest Longmont council district that includes Fire Station No. 2 at 2300 Mountain View Ave. — said she was upset she had not learned about the tour until after it occurred, and had heard about it "from a citizen" rather than from a fellow council member or city staff.

"My neighbors were upset, and no one thought, perhaps, to let me know what was going on," she said, adding she felt "disrespected" that no one told her about it in advance.

"That made me angry," Finley told her six council colleagues Friday.

Longmont is eyeing replacement and probable relocation of Fire Station No. 2 using $4.4 million from a voter-approved bond issue, but an actual move could be as many as two years or three years away.

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"This is less than a mile from my home," Finley said of the fire station, which she called "a public building" of which area residents "are quite fond."

She said she was still angry that "someone didn't think to pick up the phone and say, 'Hey, did you know we're thinking about this?' or to say that 'we should have a conversation, a public conversation, about homeless shelters.'"

At least four council members — Waters and Councilwomen Joan Peck, Polly Christensen and Marcia Martin — were invited to attend the tour by The Way Home, one of the organizations looking for possible permanent locations for a services navigation center for the homeless that might include some shelter space.

There reportedly were only three of those council members present at any given point on Tuesday because Martin arrived late.

Colorado's Open Meetings Law, which discusses requirements for open meetings for local governments, states "any meetings ... at which a majority or quorum of the body is in attendance, or is expected to be in attendance, shall be held only after full and timely notice to the public." A quorum in Longmont's case is four council members.

It is unclear if Tuesday's tour qualified as a violation because of Martin's late arrival, but it did raise questions about transparency.

Tuesday's gathering "was a tour," and not a council meeting, Martin said at one point in Friday's meeting.

She said the homelessness advocacy groups are scouting real estate possibilities throughout the city as they try to come up with an action plan.

Martin said, "They're far, far from anything substantive" other than "coordinating with the faith community ..."

Said Peck: "The Way Home is looking at several buildings," and not just the fire station.

The search for a services and shelter facility "isn't a council initiative," Christensen said. At The Way Home's meeting, "we were not there as council members. We were there as private citizens.

But Finley told Christensen: "You area always a council member. You are always a council member no matter where you go, and you need to act like that."

Christensen said after she was elected to the council, she'd asked Assistant City Manager Sandi Seader and City Attorney Eugene Mei if, as a council member she would ahve to give up things she would have done as a private citizen.

To which Finley replied, "I'm not asking you to give it up. I'm asking you to be transparent about it."

The controversy over the Tuesday's fire station tour was not on Friday's council work session agenda, but Mayor Brian Bagley raised the issue at the start of the meeting and later called the discussion "an autopsy of what happened."

Bagley has said he also was not invited to attend Tuesday and also did not learn about it until afterward, but that he would have attended if he had been invited.

He emphasized Friday that he was not accusing council members who did attend of having acted inappropriately or having violated open meetings laws.

The mayor said he knew that everyone on the council has "big hearts and strong minds" and are involved in the community in many ways, both as private citizens as well as council members.

"I wholeheartedly support anybody participating" in such community discussions "on a private level," he said.

"I also want to make sure public trust is maintained in this council," Bagley said.

He said the reason after-the-fact news about the fire station tour became "such a flash point" was that the elected council will eventually have to make decisions about the future sale or lease of the station once the city prepares to vacate it, as well as about any rezoning or development reviews that may apply before it could be used for another purpose.

Bagley said all council members need to be aware that their potential decisions about the future of the fire station property are "a public issue," one in which he said public interests and private concerns intersect.

The mayor said that if two of the seven council members get together to talk about a city issue, "it's OK," but "if there's three of us, it has to be an open meeting" to which any member of the public can come and be "allowed to sit down and listen," even if it's just three council members having breakfast at Perkins.

Bagley said that if four council members showed up at the same location and talked about city government business, and if he were one of the four, he would probably leave because the four would comprise a quorum of the seven council members.

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